I had the pleasure to be able to listen to great American hero and former Senator John Glenn at World Space Expo 2007. The event was held in November this year in Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Both John Glenn and Scott Carpenter were honored guest on the evening event. Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden discussed with them over their experiences as well as their visions for the future. I take some videos of that event. Thankfully, I also captures John Glenn’s speech on the future NASA budget. He very rightfully stressed that fact that Constellation, NASA’s new moon program, has taken a lot of money from science missions. He explains that there is no special funding for the whole constellation program. But listen yourself:
This speech couldn’t be more on-time: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is thinking about taking that Constellation money from NASA to fund education. So I think it is good to know the fact that NASA has not received any special funding and is already starving in its science activities.
If you listen closely, however, you will notice that John Glenn assigns science priority over the moon program. But that doesn’t mean that money taken away from science should now be removed from the budget at all…